Cocaine Canine Case Lands Man in Prison

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, April 27, 1995

1995-04-27 04:00:00 PDT New York -- A man was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison for trying to smuggle cocaine into Kennedy International Airport in the belly of an Old English sheep dog.

The man, John Erik Roa, 22, a former pizzeria worker from Paterson, N.J., had pleaded guilty in January in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, admitting that he knew the dog he was supposed to pick up at the airport had had nearly 5 pounds of cocaine surgically implanted before being shipped as cargo from Bogota.

The dog, since named Cokey, was near death when she arrived at Kennedy on December 1 with 10 cocaine-filled condoms in her abdomen. She has since recovered, gained 20 pounds, and now -- having demonstrated a distinct lack of interest in sniffing out drugs -- is a mascot at the Customs Service's Canine Enforcement Training Center in Front Royal, Va.